The Umbrellas of Cherbourg with Walter Frisch and Jane Gaines
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (Les Parapluies de Cherbourg)
Jacques Demy, 1964, 91 min., restored in 2024
Screening followed by a discussion with Walter Frisch and Jane Gaines
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The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is a 1964 musical romantic drama film written and directed by Jacques Demy, with music by Michel Legrand. Catherine Deneuve and Nino Castelnuovo star as two young lovers in the French city of Cherbourg, separated by circumstance. The film’s dialogue is entirely sung as recitative.
It has been seen as the second of four films by Demy films that share some of the same actors, characters, and overall atmosphere of romantic melancholy, coming after Lola (1961) and before The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967) and Model Shop (1969).
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg won the Palme d’Or at the 1964 Cannes Film Festival. It was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Foreign-Language Film, Best Original Screenplay (Demy), and Best Original Score (Demy and Legrand), and Best Original Song.
Walter Frisch is H. Harold Gumm / Harry and Albert von Tilzer Professor of Music at Columbia.
Jane M. Gaines is Professor of Film, Columbia University, and Professor Emerita of Literature and English, Duke University.
